Hospitals push age hike for Medicare

[n2doc]

Seek to avoid cuts in federal payments

By Tracy Jan GLOBE STAFF SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

WASHINGTON - As the deficit reduction supercommittee hunts for $1.5 trillion in additional savings, US hospital executives are so worried about having their payments cut that they plan to start lobbying Congress next week to shift the burden onto their elderly patients - specifically by raising the age of eligibility for Medicare.

The American Hospital Association is rallying hundreds of hospital leaders to descend upon the Capitol on Tuesday and urge legislators to consider increasing the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 as one way to save money without reducing payments to hospitals. That move is so controversial that President Obama, who once expressed a willingness to entertain the change in Medicare age eligibility, omitted it from his deficit-reduction proposal last week.

“Providers have been giving and giving and giving, and will give more. But the beneficiaries also have to be touched even though politicians feel like that’s a third rail,’’ said Lynn Nicholas, president of the Massachusetts Hospital Association. “We have to look at health care entitlements and not just payments. It’s pretty much a no brainer to raise the age of eligibility for future enrollees.’’

In addition to the eligibility age increase, which is projected to save the federal government $124.8 billion over 10 years, Nicholas said the state association would like Congress to consider other cost-sharing options within Medicare. Raising the elderly’s Medicare premiums for doctors’ visits from 25 percent to 35 percent, for example, would result in a savings of $241.2 billion over a decade, she said.

One proposal Nicholas said the hospital association endorses would gradually increase the age of eligibility by two months every year starting with people born in 1949, until it reaches 67.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2011/09/29/hospital-executives-lobby-raise-medicare-eligibility-age/Y9a91Pm90pqMMjRukRF8AJ/story.xml

[begin_within]

1. How many people will that kill?

[n2doc]

2. They don't care so long as they get paid n/t

[asjr]

3. They can call it the Paul bill.

[Shagbark Hickory]

10. Depends on how deep the Greedy Hospital Association's pockets are.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Say it after me...healthcare should not be a for profit

Business.

[TwilightGardener]

5. How about hospitals cutting shit like "aromatherapy" systems first?

Yeah, there was a new hospital in Omaha that opened up a few years ago that supposedly had piped-in "fresh baked cookie" aromas on all floors...

[cutlassmama]

7. they had that at a hospital I was in about 10 years ago. What a crock.

[TheWraith]

8. It strikes me that that's not going to relax people, just piss them off...

...when they can't actually GET the fresh baked cookies.

[TwilightGardener]

9. What's worse, IMO, is that many hospital room smells would sort of cancel out

or mix badly with pleasant smells and create an unpleasant association.

[JoeyT]

12. +1

And the people that wouldn't want the cookies because they were sick and already nauseous might not appreciate it either. Seems like there might be at least a handful of those in a hospital.

[HockeyMom]

6. Seniors will have to keep working to keep their insurance?

IF they are fortunate enough to have a job. Where I used to work, once you became eligible for Medicare you were no longer eligigle for their medical benefits. Hmm. Maybe they would just drop people at that age anyway if Medicare was raised.

[Jim Lane]

11. So curtailing the eligibility is "pretty much a no brainer"?

I'd say that lowering the age is pretty much a no-brainer, given that Medicare operates so much more efficiently than the private for-profit insurance companies.

She's right on one point, though. It's unfair and short-sighted for politicians to try to achieve spurious savings simply by cutting payments to providers. Already, some Medicare recipients have trouble finding health care, because of the increasing number of providers who won't accept new Medicare patients.